Tuesday, 31 March 2009

Waseem's Ever Great Food tour of JHB 2009

I have recently lost the urge to blog and I thought to myself I'm over this blogging thing and I have found much more enjoyment in blogging Almost News than the recent inane meme blogs.

I resolved to let my blog go, but after I received my recent Sitemeter and it informed me that I have on average, 240 visitors a week, I thought it be pretty lousy for them to be greeted by the same crappy posts. So this is an attempt to revive The Ever Great Waseem.

My recent JHB trip was good. Filled with good food, lots of driving, getting lost couple times as well as meeting old and new friends. The food was a real highlight, who knew JHB had such great food joints? Maybe you did but not me. (And who says food joints? Me, apparently.)

So I present to you: Waseem's Ever Great Food tour of JHB 2009

1. Chuckleberrys

Chuckleberrys was the venue for our infamous blogger meet, highly publicised and sparsely attended. I'm not complaining though cos I got to meet 2 of my best blogger friends (who, I think, have been more than just blogger friends for quite a while) and 2 of my favorite plurk buddies. What is plurk you ask? Exactly! Anyway this isn't a blog meet post, it's a food tour post. The menus were unnecessarily heavy, and food choices were vast. I finally settled on sauteed mushroom burger, hoping they had mushrooms and burgers cos for some reason they didn't have much other ingredients, including curry and banana, and other stuff I don't remember. I also ordered a choc fudge milkshake, while Hamza bravely ordered the peanut butter milkshake, and so did Saaleha, in fact their orders were exactly the same. It was like rain on a wedding day. (Actually it wasn't cos it was a coincidence not irony. I just wanted to say rain on a wedding day, which is also not irony.)

The burger was ok, I had a lightweight one, compared to Naeem's middleweight one, which was huge. I think for the price, Wimpy is better, or even McD's for that matter. The milkshake was lousy, so was the peanut butter one, which I tasted from Hamza. You want a great milkshake? Have McD's strawberry milkshake. You remember me talking about great food joints at beginning of post, this wasn't one of them.

2. Groom's House

You know when you go to an Indian house, you HAVE to eat. There is no choice. Especially when they set a whole tressel just for you, holding up all other arrangements. The menu was Kalia and Soji, typical Khatham food. I couldn't stomach any Kalia, considering the ok burger, so I just had some Soji. Soji was good, not too granular, not too sweet, not too oily, just right. I got away with just looking at the Kalia and sipping Cooee Iron Brew thoughtfully.

3. The Wedding

At the wedding, I fell in love. With the dessert tray. I told Hamza, we should bide our time though, dessert would be all the sweeter at the end of the meal. The meal comprised of sweet rice, which I find rather stupid in concept, and chicken biryani. Biryani, alas with basmathi rice. Some people like basmathi rice, I have no idea why, it is an even more stupid concept than sweet rice. I ate my meal with little relish, looking all the more forward to my dessert. We finished our meal and went to wash our hands, and Hamza went outside to smoke, while I gave him company. On our return, disaster struck! Our beautifully assembled dessert tray lay almost barren, pillaged save for few enticing ice cream cupcakes and some healthy-looking fruit cupcakes. We looted the last remnants of the dessert tray, looking longingly, at the immaculately concieved cupcakes and triple choc mousse things of our fellow diners. The ice cream cupcake thing was nice, and the Bar One swiss roll, but it really was a case of what might have been.

4. Spill the Beans

Rather than be assailed by another round of basmathi biryani, we managed to escape the groom's house once more, and our destination was premeditated. Spill the Beans. Pizza.

I knew very little about this place, except for that they served pizza and coffee. The setting was that of a coffee shop, very trendy, if I used the word sheek, I would have said sheek. We ordered a couple of large pizzas, don't remember the names, but they were delicious. Easily the best pizza I've eaten in a long while. The remarkable thing were the hot chocolates we ordered, not the most delicious (Wimpy makes the best far as I'm concerned), but they had these amazing designs on the froth using hot chocolate syrup. It was the food joint of the food tour.

5. Schlotzsky's

Schlotzsky's - funny name, serious sandwich. We had this at Sandton City, I ordered a club sandwich. The best sandwich I've ever eaten. I regret giving half mine to Hamza. I think Subway is overrated, they have great bread choices though. We capped off our JHB eating tour with chocolate minibon. Tasted the same as the one in Durban. I wanted to try Haagen Daz, but it was R21 a scoop, and I was like Fuck that.

We also had Wrap It Up on the way home, but that it was in Harrismith so that is excluded from the Ever Great Food Tour. Sorry Wrap It Up. Thems the rules.

8 comments:

i liked my cookies n cream milkshake. i must also try spill the beans. damn u got to places even natives dont :P Fuck that- u spending too much time with Mj;) My mum uses basmathi coz its healthier. its also more expensive. rain on a wedding day :D

I used to eat alot of Haagen Daaz in London, the one in Leicester Square (especially when I was celeb stalking)...it's overpriced for damn sure and somewhat over-rated. There is some in the Ben and Jerry's range that could kick Haagen's ass :)